Joey Lee's Blog

I learnt my greatest lesson from my cousin who lives in Vancouver. Before I came, I have met my cousin when I was like, a child. The memories are vague and fizzy. When I was here, I lived with him and his wife together. As we spent more time and knew each other, I found and learnt valuable experiences from him. He went to Sauder like more than 8 years ago, and now he is working in HSBC. He coached me some lessons in life and provided me with advices when I needed the most. His dedications and persistence towards life and work impressed me so much. I would say certain degree of being successful is partially built in one person’s personality. What is more, decisions are always important and eventually leads to a huge difference. As I could say my cousin is my mentor during my university life, his experience do give me tremendous impact and insight to my career and my life.

From COMM 299, I have been exposed to a wide range of useful and valuable real-life tools, such as building up the resume and conducting a stimulated interview. But more importantly, I discovered and explored more about my own real personality and what I am really looking for. The process helps me to get ready in my career, thus I would not be confused and helpless when I graduate.

I have been browsing the web and see this article on globe and mail. (link) It’s about the power of persuasion by Kevin Dutton, a Cambridge research fellow in social psychology. As we all know, marketing is all about persuasion. Firms are trying to convoy their messages to the consumers and persuade them to purchase. And it is vital for marketing experts to learn about social psychology. The crowd always drawing more and more people in the trend, just like a snowball. As far as you could ignite the heart of people, the following works are just easy and smooth. Knowing more about the public  is very powerful. As stated in the essay, “our responses are so deep-rooted that we simply can’t resist. Mr. Dutton cites one 2007 study in which hotel guests were presented with signs requesting they reuse towels. The pleas covered a range of tactics, and included: “Help save the environment,” “Help the hotel save energy,” and “Help save resources for future generations.” The most effective appeal? The one that said 75 per cent of guests who had stayed in that particular room had reused their towels.” So we can see, using the right way or method, you will get a majority of people to do the exact way you wanted them to do.

Do you know that McDonald’s is now doing the free promotion for 2 weeks? Yup they did! But they ended already, awwwwwwwww. They did this once or twice in a year, so next time get in line earlier! For this promotion, McDonald’s has done a bit advertisement. I heard about the promotion on air for a lot a lot of times. Also, they have large signs and words on the windows and doors in stores in order to catch the attentions of the pass-by. Yup McDonald’s has convinced me to drop by a several times for their free coffee. But their free coffee doesn’t really “free”. Yes it is free, but in some way, McDonald’s subtly  alter your purchasing decision. Why is that? It is pretty simple, when you get a coffee, you might also want something to eat. Usually you won’t go to McDonald’s to have your lunch (maybe not!), but now, things change. With free coffee, you might want to have your lunch once and for all in a McDonald’s store. The extra incentive is the free coffee. McDonald’s provides you an incentive to spend extra bucks in their stores. And usually people like free stuff, despite they don’t see the potential psychological strategy deployed by the firms. Anyhow, this post is just for your reference only, it doesn’t mean that McDonald’s is manipulating people’s mind in order to get extra sales 😛

Speaking of promotional strategies, Starbucks just launched a strategy last week regarding to their holiday beverages. It started from 18th to 21 November, at 2 to 5 p.m.. And when you buy 1 holiday beverage at that time frame, and you will get another holiday drink for free! It sounds good isn’t it? And there are deeper plans than just giving out free stuff. First, if you go there with someone else, like friends or families, your companion could have a chance to try the product of Starbucks. Maybe your friend or family didn’t have any coffee in Starbucks or they may be loyal to other brands. However, this strategy give Starbucks a chance to  access potential customers or erode some market shares from other coffee shops. What is more, the promotion is boosting up the sales. I was in a Starbucks shop within that time period. And I have seen a long line up before me. The interesting part is that there are another Starbucks in the below level of the mall. So those customers in front of me could be from the downstairs, once they find out there are too many people down there. I could imagine the crowd in the other shops. And usually the line up is not so long at that time, based on my frequent visits. Furthermore, it also involves physiological factors. Examples like limited time offer could invoke people to think it’s a great time to spend on coffee since its a good deal. It also helps Starbucks to achieve word of mouth effect. The exposure increases as there are more people know the promotion from their reference group, more sales would be done. What is more important, Starbucks tries to infuse their value into their promotions. What I mean is that Starbucks stresses the promotion is about sharing, which is in line with their whole campaign in this fall. When the above factors reinforce each other, it is powerful for the whole market to gain access to Starbucks’ new beverages and hence improve their holiday sales.

So, 1 of the most famous serious on the big screen – SAW 3D is in the cinema on 31st October! Yeah I know it’s a bit late to have this heads up, but whatever. The newest SAW is already the sixth/seventh? of the series. Some may not know and ask “what the heck is SAW? Oh well, that is a horror movie, but not ghost-like stuff. Anyway, my point is, the publisher or the marketing group of the movie is brilliant. They are using the special occasion to promote their movie. Especially for a movie, their promotional techniques are vital. They are trying to stir discussions and hopefully bring much attention as they could. And there we go, Halloween is perfect for a horror movie! The creepy and horrifying mood, ummmmmmm, don’t you think there are no better time to watch a horror movie on a horror day?

Oh yeah fyi, its a 18+ movie, so kids are missing this 😛

Regarding to my last few blogs, I have mentioned the electric car of GM, and Tommy Ng has mentioned about it. (link) And as  his blog has mentioned, the gasoline firms are suppressing the development of electric cars back in the 90’s. It makes perfect sense because once the electric car is flourishing, they will definitely lose a big chuck of money since cars doesn’t need gas anymore. However, what they didn’t see is that despite the drop in the demand in public usage, it doesn’t mean the whole world is reducing usage of gasoline. Powering a city or country is still relying on the gasoline, powering heavy machines require gasoline, and a country needs gasoline as well. As a result, as the whole world is being greener, the final result is for the good of the earth and human. It’s time to face the reality and begins to look for and invest in new energies!

I saw this on Tommy’s blog, it is really touching. Is it take place in here? 🙂

I have seen the post from my group mate (link) and found it quite useful. And marketing is all about getting attentions right? So if you could make use of the channel effectively, you could achieve so much. For a successful ads, not only letting your audience know what’s your product, but also stirring a discussions about your marketing strategies, could be very effective in the society. So humor is always the best way out. Like what I have said before in my blog, Apple Inc. is using actual people chats around the issues of a PC and a Mac. The comparison is so funny and true. Many people are experiencing the exact problems that have shown on the commercial, hence they really understand what is like to be a PC user. Furthermore, the PC users might fed up with the problems and just tries to use a Mac instead. So, humor is really important to get a customers’ attention in your ads.

Video games are a enormous market for all around the world. It generates billions of dollars each year, generally speaking. The game developers are very concerns about their games’ exposure to the public and hence they put much effort in letting their potential customers know about their games. One of the best selling series Call of Duty which is developed by ACTIVISION company. They are now preparing to release their latest game universally on 9th of November. Posters, social medias are all over the places. The launch day once set, their fans are just getting excited and looking forward to it. Not only word-of-mouth is brewing among fans, but also new potential customers will get a chance and time to know about that new game. They could see posters and advertisement all around the places, and thus they could ask their reference group of doing research about that game. If the reputation is very positive, they have a high chance to purchase it. And on the social media, like facebook or twitter, the official media can release any latest news and interact with their followers. It is a great channel to communicate with the followers because the  social media provide a great platform for them to release not only texts, but also some musics, video clips or web pages. So, yeah, I am also very looking forward to it and also understanding their marketing strategies. And here is some clip:

Speaking of sports games, NHL, NFL, NBA would be the most famous in the North America. The demands for live games seats are so huge, and you would know that when you have been there once or twice. I don’t have a chance to be there, but I am sure I will be, someday! The funny things is that tickets for games are always be the full price, unlike the movies. So if you have kids or seniors go to the games with you, they still have to pay for the full price. In the cinemas, if you are kids under certain ages or you are aged 65 or above, you will get some discount prices. Price discrimination is taken place. But why those games cannot offer price discrimination? In my opinion, the games are facing huge demand, the price discrimination will only jeopardies the sale since majorities think that they have to pay more. And facing huge demand, the ticket selling will be better off when price is set for all people, so as their profits. So next time, it might be better for you to stay home for the games if you have kids or seniors as your company!